The University of Colorado — where more than 10,000 people gather each April 20 for the annual 4/20 marijuana smoke-out — moved up two spots from No. 6 last year to No. 4 this year on the Princeton Review’s “reefer madness” list.

But the Boulder campus was trumped by its southern neighbor Colorado College, a small private school that’s ranked No. 1 in the nation on the list.

Jackie Beisman, a CU student from Austin, Texas, said it seems like CU’s ranking should be higher.

“Marijuana is a popular recreational activity here,” she said.

Beisman, a communication major, said when she was shopping for colleges she considered the school’s academic reputation — but also wanted a school that’s known to do some partying and has nice scenery.

Ohio University in Athens was dubbed the top party school by the Princeton Review this year. CU, which topped the party school list in 2003, was absent from those rankings this year.

Rob Franek, vice president and publisher of the Princeton Review, said Colorado College has been a “usual suspect” on the marijuana list for the past few years, and this year it surpassed CU. Both schools, he said, have strong academic records.

“I have high respect for both schools,” Franek said. (No pun intended).

The Princeton Review surveyed 122,000 students nationwide before compiling its lists.

“We go directly to whom we think would be experts, and that’s current college students,” Franek said.

A spokeswoman for Colorado College did not return calls from the Camera. The college also ranked high for having good classroom discussions and for being a “Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians” kind of school.

Jonathan Fortune, who will be a senior at Colorado College in the fall, said the school has a small-scale 4/20 smoke-out that draws about 100 people.

“I think it’s inevitable for Colorado schools to be higher up on the list, with medical marijuana dispensaries being so prominent,” he said.

Fortune said the ranking is not anything to be proud of, but students do seem to smoke quite a bit.

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said the rankings are subjective and have no scientific backing.

“The media is way more interested in the rankings than we are,” Hilliard said.

In the spring, Playboy ranked CU the No. 1 party school in the nation, saying it’s a “beer drinker’s paradise” and citing the massive 4/20 gathering.

The Princeton Review — a college test prep company with no relation to Princeton University — released the “top 20” in advance of its guidebook “The Best 376 Colleges: 2012 Edition,” which goes on sale today. The lists range from “happiest students” to “everybody plays intramural sports” to “Got Milk? (beer usage reported low).”

“I think it’s accurate, but the school deserves a better reputation,” she said.

CU last week released survey results that included participation rates in the 4/20 smoke-out. Of the 3,478 undergraduates who responded, 24 percent reported that they smoked pot or ate food containing marijuana at the gathering. About 11 percent joined the crowd but didn’t consume pot. About half of students — 48.4 percent — had nothing to do with the smoke-out, and the remaining students watched it from a distance.